Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 183, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1919 — DEMANDS PRIVATE CAPITAL BE ELIMINATED FROM ROADS. [ARTICLE]

DEMANDS PRIVATE CAPITAL BE ELIMINATED FROM ROADS.

Washington, August 4.—Organized labor dame out today with the unequivocal, formal demand that , private capital be retired from the railroads. A tri-pamtite control composed of ithe public, the operating management and the employes is demanded , 1 instead. Addressed to the American public 'and signed by the engineers, the ■ firemen, ithe conductors and the American Federation of Labor, a formal statement wais issued announcing this proposal, which will be carried before congress Wednesday. “It marks,” says the statement, “the step by which organized labor ! passes from demands for wage in- | creases to demands that the system of profits in industry be overhauled.” This sentence sums up in a few words the proposal, of which there 'have been hints and indications, but ( which is now laid before the country for the first time. Everywhere in official Washington it is recognized as the most serious and far-reaching proposition the country will ibe called : on to face. I Characterizing the proposal as labor’s bill,” it is put forth as a rem- | edy for the high cost of living, because the railroads are the key industry of the nation. It demands the genuine co-opera-tion and partnership 'based on a real ■ community of interest and partici- ! patioin in control,” of which President Wilson Spoke to congress and which the statement says has been ignored iby labor the private owners of the “We ask,” it says, “that the railroads of (the United States be vested in the public; that those actually engaged in conducting industry; not from Wall Street, but from lie.” 'Briefly, labor’s nlan demands: That the privfte owners receive fixed interest return for every honest dollar that they have invested. That .the tri-partite control, heretofore ref eared (to, be established, in corporations which shall lease the roads and in. Which the public, the operating managements and labor shall be represented equally. I That the public, the operators and the wage earners shall share equally all revenue in excess of 'the guarantee to private capital, by ' granting to the operators and the ■employes one-half the savings which are expected to be made by such a perfected organization, and to the public the other half as consumers, either by increasing service ! without adding costa or by reducing rates. >